52 
ON THE 
Adlethod of Atlobing Colossal Stones, 
As practised by some of the more adoanced ations of Antiquity. 
By the Rey. A. C. Smrru. 
Read before the Society during the Annudl Meeting at Salisbury, Sept. 13th, 1865. 
PRESUME that among the many strangers who annually 
visit Stonehenge, after the first mental conjecture as to its 
date, and the people who erected that imposing structure, the 
question which next suggests itself to the mind of each is, how 
did the builders of those times (whoever they were, and whenever 
they lived) transport and then erect such huge and massive stones ? 
Now this is a question which nobody can satisfactorily answer, 
for we have nothing to guide us to any certainty on the point: 
and however ingenious and plausible the theories which from time 
to time have been adduced, they can at most lay claim to pro- 
bability, but can by no means be pushed beyond the limits of 
conjecture. 
Under these circumstances it is well to make a wide cast among 
the nations of ancient time, and if we can leave anything definite 
of the practice in this particular of other people in those distant 
ages, such practice may perhaps serve as a clue to guide us to the 
true solution of the question which occupies our attention here, 
and at any rate is an enquiry full of interest, as we ponder over 
the vast and bulky masses which somehow were raised by a primitive 
people to the position they have held for so many ages. 
Now it so happens that within the last few years, the researches 
which have been carried on among the most civilized of the ancient 
nations (I mean the Assyrians and the Egyptians), have revealed 
the method which both those nations employed for transporting 
the colossal figures in which those people delighted. Mr. Layard 
and Sir Henry Rawlinson in Assyria, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson 
